


Control

by Lola_Rose_Robins



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel/Demon Hybrids, Angst, Background Relationships, Caring Dean Winchester, Caring Sam Winchester, Depressed Castiel (Supernatural), Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, He/Him Pronouns For Castiel (Supernatural), I'm Bad At Titles, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jody Mills - Freeform, Possible Destiel - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:36:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27147451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lola_Rose_Robins/pseuds/Lola_Rose_Robins
Summary: One month ago, Cas walked out his family and they haven't heard from him since. When they finally set out to search for him, they find their friend hiding out in a cabin. They take him back home and try to support him as he slowly gets out of his depressive episode.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Kudos: 12





	Control

**Author's Note:**

> If there's any inaccuracies, please let me know. 
> 
> Also, I do not know what's up with my use of (verb) tenses in this one...let's just ignore that and move on.

“Hey, Dean, have you heard anything from Cas lately,” Sam asked as he walked into the kitchen, where Dean was already enjoying an unhealthy breakfast and some coffee.

“Nah,” Dean replied, before taking another sip from his mug and returning his attention to whatever he was doing on his phone, Sam didn’t even wan’t to know.

“That’s it? C’mon, Dean, are you not even worried, just a little bit?”

That’s just it, Dean was worried sick, has been since the moment Cas cut off all communications, but until now Dean had ignored his worries. This was Cas they were talking about, he does this sort of thing all the time.

But if even Sam is starting to get worried now…

“Alright, what’s your plan, Sammy?”

Suddenly Dean’s expression shifts and all of him is focussed on whatever Sam might say next.

“Uhh, well, we should find out if anyone has seen him, since he’s not exactly answering himself. It might also be a good idea to search for anything related to Jimmy or one of his other aliases.” It’s not much, but it’s a start.

Cas has been missing for a month now, it’s about time the Winchesters do something about it. He could be in danger, probably is, he did just royally piss off both Heaven and Hell right before his disappearance. He probably wasn’t feeling too great about that either. In fact, the last thing Sam remembers seeing was the look of pure guilt and sorrow on Cas’ face as he realised what he’d done.

It’s gonna be a difficult task, finding Cas. He does still have half of his grace, with the other half of him being fuelled by demonic energy. He could be anywhere by now, probably impossible to find unless he wants to be found, but it’s still worth a try. Knowing Cas, he does like to stick to familiar areas, so it’s highly unlikely that he’s on a completely different continent.

Sam leaves the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with his laptop and some charging cables. Together, the two brothers head to the library and start their research. Finding a super powerful angel-demon hybrid can’t be _that_ difficult, right? Well, as it turns out, it is _that_ difficult. The first half of the day yields no results. Luckily, the boys know how to find people by now, and since they’ve known Cas for a while, they’ve gotten pretty good at predicting his patterns. Halfway through the afternoon, at about half past 4, Sam finally comes across something. It’s small, but it’s something.

At first glance, it’s just a report from a small-town Energy Company that goes into some detail about which of the cabins on the town’s property uses the most energy. One of those cabins just so happens to be registered under the name James Novak, has been for 21 years. Now normally this would not be that interesting, Jimmy was a person after all, he lived a life, owned stuff, it made sense that he still had some stuff to his name, but for the past 15 years, the cabin used a constant of zero electricity according to the report, but one month ago, which was when the page was last updated, there was a tiny blip of power used. Not much, but something worth checking out.

The next morning Sam and Dean start their journey. It’s a 9 hour drive to reach the cabin, not too far, but still…On the way there, Sam tries calling their contacts again, to inquire about any possible updates, of which there are none.

By the time they finally pull into the driveway of the cabin, the sun has already started to set. Damn winter time. The lights inside are off, but when Dean tries the door, he finds it to be unlocked and slightly ajar.

The inside of the cabin looks like it hasn’t been used in years, with a thick layer of dust coating nearly everything, everything save for one single trail leading from the front door into the bedroom. At least, Dean guesses it must be the bedroom, since there only seem to be two rooms in this place and this one is obviously a living room - kitchen combo.

“Cas?”

Dean’s voice sounds hollow, all of the sound gets absorbed by the dust, and the air hanging around the room is just downright oppressive. There is no answer, but a slight creaking noise does sound from the bedroom. Dean glances over at Sam, getting the needed affirmation in the shape of a nod and a hand on his shoulder, before silently walking across the room, to the other door. Dean waits for sam to join him before he quietly pushes the door open and peeks around the corner to look inside.

The bedroom, like the rest of the cabin, is shrouded in darkness and has a thick layer of dust coating every single surface. It almost looks like this room too hasn’t been used in decades, save for the fact that there is a shape lying in the bed, wrapped up in blankets and nearly unrecognisable as a living creature.

“Cas?”

The shape doesn’t move, it just lies there in a messy heap of moth-hole-filled fabric. Awkward silence fills the air, causing both Winchesters to hesitantly stand in the doorway, unsure how to proceed. After what feels like half an hour, but what was probably just a few minutes of silence, a deep, rough voice croaks out from deep within the cloth pile, “Hello Dean.”

“Cas!” Dean speed-walks over to the other side of the bed and carefully lifts part of the blanket. Underneath the heavy layers of blankets he finds Cas laying on his side, staring off into space, eyes practically glazed over. Dean kneels by the bedside to try and establish eye contact, but the once vibrant blue eyes, now pale and dull, don’t seem to be seeing much of anything.

“Hey there, buddy, you alright? C’mon, let’s get you home,” Dean speaks softly, as one would speak to a frightened animal. No response.

“Cas, you can’t stay here,” Sam’s voice pipes up from the other side of the bed as he sits down, careful not to stir up too much dust. He instantly regrets sitting down as he feels water soak through his jeans, as he looks up he notices the giant hole in the roof, right above the bed.

But Cas does not seem bothered to move, not at all. If he hadn’t spoken just minutes before, they’d have said he was dead, but he wasn’t. At this point, dying would be pretty much impossible for him, the only one capable of killing him would be God, and he’s kinda dead.

Alright, time to get out of here.

Dean pulls away the rest of the blankets, most of them soaked from the rainwater that has undoubtedly come in through the hole in the roof, and helps Cas get out of the bed. As he regards his best friend, standing there with his head lowered and tensed up shoulders, still clad in his regular suit, which was now rumpled and completely soaked through, he can feel his heart ache. He should have come here sooner, should have followed his instincts, he never should have allowed Cas to leave in the first place.

The Winchester brothers lead a dazed Cas stumbling out of the cabin and towards the Impala. It’s a shame they hadn’t thought to bring fresh clothes, but maybe they could pick something up along the way.

“What time is it, Sammy?”

“It’s seven.”

Damn, most of the shops around here would probably be closing soon. What else…

“Ya think Jody’s up for a visit?”

“I’ll call.”

As Sam talks on the phone, Dean starts up Baby and drives them away from the dark cabin. He quickly glances at Cas in the rear-view mirror and is mildly concerned to see him fast asleep. Angels don’t sleep, neither do demons… He turns the heater on, just to be sure, and speeds up a bit, just barely going over the speed limit. Only three hours to Jody’s house.

“Jody says we can come over, she’ll even have a guest room ready for us.”

“Awesome,” Dean replies, but his voice is still filled with worry, not reflecting any awe at all.

Two hours and forty-five minutes later, the Impala pulls into jody’s driveway and the Winchesters are met by Jody. They quickly lead a half-sleeping Cas upstairs and into the guest bedroom, where they quickly change him out of his old clothes, towel him off, and put on some dry ones. A few minutes later Cas is wrapped up in several blankets again and is shivering profusely. Oh how much Dean just wants to get him into a hot shower, but that would only make matters worse. No, he needs to use his own body heat to heat up his core first, let him shiver. Still, Dean can’t help but put an arm around Cas’ shoulder and rubbing circles on his back.

When the shivering has finally stopped and Cas no longer looks like he could fall over at any moment, dean quickly leads him over to the bathroom, removes his clothes and pushes him into the warm shower. Cas is still pretty unresponsive, so Dean resorts to washing him off himself, starting with his hair and slowly making his way down. He ignores the dried blood washing off of his arms and the small scars that hide underneath it, for now. When Cas is all cleaned up, Dean towels him off again and puts some clean pyjamas on him. As soon as he’s confident that Cas is comfortable and warm he grabs his hand and leads him downstairs, where the others are already at the table, quietly eating their dinner.

Jody is the first to notice them and speaks up, “Hey, look who’s all cleaned up again.”

Cas doesn’t respond but his eyes are just a little more focussed, a small smile briefly plays on his lips, probably more to be polite than anything else, but it’s still a response.

During dinner, Cas mostly just pushes his food around on his plate, not eating much, but Dean still manages to get him to eat some potatoes and, because Sam insisted, some pieces of broccoli and a carrot.

That night Dean stays by Cas’ bedside to watch over him, sure, it’s creepy, but that’s beside the point. He watches as Cas tosses and turns, unable to fall asleep. Eventually Cas just seems to give up on sleeping at all and just lays on his side, staring blankly at the wall, in the same position the had found him in earlier that evening. This can’t continue and besides, Dean himself is getting pretty damn tired too. He quietly slides out of his chair and gets into the bed, crawling over towards Cas and hugging him from behind. Cas doesn’t respond, doesn’t move, but dean feels how his shoulders get just a little bit less tense. Half an hour later, Dean finally falls asleep to the sound of Cas snoring gently.

The next morning, Dean is the first to wake up and spends a few minutes just looking at Cas as he sleeps. He notices that some of the scars and small wounds on his arms have healed significantly overnight. Good, so his grace or energy or whatever is still intact.

When Cas finally wakes up, Dean tries to cheer him up a little, “Morning, sunshine.” It’s not much but it actually earns him a small but genuine smile.

Cas doesn’t look like he’s gonna move anytime soon, so Dean just lies back down with him and they spend most of their morning lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling. It sounded so boring, and Dean would much rather go downstairs and eat something, but Cas just looked so content there that he didn’t have the heart to disturb him, so he went along with it. Dean never would’ve thought ceilings to be interesting, but if he’s gonna be lying down for several hours he’s gotta do something to entertain himself. He lets his eyes follow the small cracks in the paint, occasionally jumping from one part to another, discovering all kinds of stuff along the way. It’s entertaining enough for a little while, but eventually he does get bored again. He glances over at Cas and notices that the contentment from before has faded away and has been replaced by that blank look again. Time to go.

Dean gets out of the bed and pulls Cas along with him, Cas doesn’t respond, he doesn’t follow or fight back, but he allows Dean to pull him along, down the stairs and into the kitchen. With some effort, Dean gets Cas to eat two bites of a sandwich and gulp down a glass of water. It’s not much, but it sure as hell is better than nothing.

After eating breakfast, everyone gathers in the living room and they watch a movie together beforethe boys head home again. As the movie plays, dean occasionally glances over at Cas. He knows Cas loves this movie, but right now he just looks uninterested, he isn’t even looking at the screen. Instead, his gaze is focussed on the wall behind the television, specifically on the small spider that’s crawling up towards the ceiling. Dean doesn’t try to wake him out of his trance, but does slap away the hand that keeps scratching at the wounds on his arm. The wounds aren’t healing.

On the way back, Cas is silent. Not that he has said much of anything since they’ve found him, but he is being very silent, abnormally silent. He’s just sitting there, almost like he’s frozen in time, staring at a small piece of fuzz that’s stuck to the ceiling, the stark contrast absorbing most of his attention. Dean tries to fill the silence by telling Cas stories, what they’ve been doing, any hunts they’ve done, plans, eventually just rambling on about anything and everything to fill the silence. It helps a little, Cas is still staring at the same spot, but at least his shoulders are somewhat relaxed now. Dean keeps talking the entire way to the bunker, occasionally interrupted by Sam who has a story of his own. Back home he helps cas out of the car, noticing that the wounds on his arm have closed up and healed significantly.

More days pass in much the same fashion, with Cas staying quiet and Sam and Dean pulling him along everywhere. After a week of this, however, it is starting to get old.

“I’m just saying that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to take him to a therapist,” Sam says, as he tries to keep up with Dean, “Will you at least consider it‽”

Suddenly Dean twirls around to face Sam, “Fine, but who’s gonna pay for that huh? You?” He stays still for a moment, waiting for an answer. “Yes,” is all Sam could answer. He didn’t have too much yet, but he already has some ideas to get more, it’ll work.

They manage to make an appointment for the very same day, how that happened is unknown, but it did. For this one time, both brothers accompany Cas as they drive over to the therapist’s office. After dropping him off, sam and Dean decide that now is as good a time as any to stock up on supplies, they still have an hour to spare before they have to go pick up Cas again, so they might as well make use of their time.

Picking up Cas apparently also comes with a prescription for some antidepressants, which they pick up along the way home. Now all they can do is hope it’s enough. At least that evening, Cas walks the short distance from a chair in the corner to the dining table by himself.

Weeks pass by. Cas still doesn’t speak much, but his good days are slowly starting to outnumber the bad ones. By this time, they’ve already figured out, or Sam figured it out and informed the others, that cas’ grace is still very much intact, for some reason it just gets blocked on the bad days. That reason is probably just that it’s a failsafe, to make sure that an angel doesn’t accidentally blow up an entire city in a fit of rage.

After a full year, Cas is mostly himself again. He still rarely speaks, but he hunts, he laughs, he eats again. Sure, there is still the occasional bad day, but those are getting farther apart.

It’s also nice to have such a powerful ally. Hunts rarely go wrong anymore and they manage to save slightly more people.

**Author's Note:**

> How did Cas become this weird hybrid? I don't know... I'm still figuring that one out myself.   
> Maybe he died and was missing too much of himself to be resurrected so they supplemented his angel grace with demonic energy?
> 
> I was also having trouble writing an ending to this, so if it feels a bit hurried, that's why.


End file.
